


A Walk Towards Myself

by Proskenion



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internal Monologue, Memories, POV First Person, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prose Poem, Stream of Consciousness, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25949530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Proskenion/pseuds/Proskenion
Summary: How do you survive years of abuse? You don't. And yet you do.Theon takes a walk and think about all the ordeals he went through.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	A Walk Towards Myself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SelkieWife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelkieWife/gifts).



> Hullo squidies ! 
> 
> I don't know what this is tbh. I've seen a gorgeous post by SelkieWife on Tumblr and it got mixed in my mind with an old idea of mine and here we are. 
> 
> IKY big sis <3

How do you survive years of abuse? You don't. And yet, you do. 

I walk down the same paths I've already walked down hundreds of time. I smell the same perfumes, I watch the same scenery, I listen to the same sounds. Again and again and again. 

My mind like sea spray floats in the wind, words on breeze, tears on fog, travelling down the steep road of my memories. A woman, a mother, sings a lullaby. A little boy cries alone in the damp cold, out of sight. Other boys laugh, hit, harm. The little boy weeps. A man, a father, or maybe not, with scornful eyes that sting like jelly fishes. A little girl who smiles. A mother singing a lullaby.

When I know I'm alone and can't be seen I stop and close my eyes. I breathe in deeply. I breathe out. I focus on my body, standing, tall, soft, pulsating with life. I remind myself I'm alive. 

A young man, tied to a cross. Almost a shadow already. His body and soul turned to pieces, to dust. To nothing. He screams, he weeps, he begs, to no avail. He can't prevent the monster to eat him, tearing the flesh, crushing the heart, until there is no man left, just a shadowy ghost of the youth he once was. 

Then I put my hands, what's left of them, on my face. I touch it slowly, every curve, every default. I caress the marked skin, wounded fingers against wounded flesh. Slowly, I feel my limbs. I redraw myself piece by piece. 

A boy shouts, calls for his mother, but she is too far away and he can no longer hear her. He knows he will never see her again. A little girl runs on the pier but the wind steals her voice away. This little girl too the boy will never see again. Ghosts, that's what he takes with him, first ones of many, dead ones, living ones, all real. They will stick to him at night in the cold, dry air that doesn't smell like rain and salt. 

The lower my hands go the softer my touch becomes. I try to give love to those parts of me who reminds me of all the hatred and twisted love, from myself and others. I make sure to remember everyone of them, to caress each one delicately, make them know the loathing is gone - as long as we manage to keep it at bay. Sometimes it crawls back in, but we know its vicious ways now - we've learn to answer back. 

Wolves and snow. Amongst them the boy grows. Amongst them but never one of them. There is always a way to remind him he is a stranger, a prisoner. Cold, disdain, disregard, and the nightmares at night, the scary dreams of falling towers and burning ships. There's one small wolf which does not so much bites, though. Sometimes, when the boy is alone with his wolf friend, he almost feels like he belongs. 

I lie down on my back and I look up to the sky. I smile. Then I say it, softly, slowly, like a secret a child whispers to another child's ear, I murmur it so it will stay with me a bit longer. _Theon._ I taste the shape of the name on my tongue. Theon. My name. A sacred word that makes me real. Theon. 

A woman, a sister, sings a lullaby. Her laughter sounds like the crashing waves on the shore and her eyes are the same than the little girl's who once ran on the pier. She's got the same smile too. 

Later at night I close my eyes. I remember my walk towards myself. All of my wounds are still open, they always will be. If I am not careful they might bleed again. I keep watch. I tend to them every day. I have to. How do you survive years of abuse? You don't. And yet you do. 

Another girl, with eyes once the wrong color, the most beautiful pearls. Tender skin with a soft heart, she's a princess in rags, a beacon in a stormy night or a lost ship looking for harbour. She is everything and all at once. 

I close my eyes. I breathe in deeply. I breathe out. As I fall asleep I can hear a voice inside my head, coming from a distant land, another time, another world.

_Every day, I magic myself alive again_

_from the near death experience of trauma._

_I swallow my heart back from_

_the lump it has become in my throat._

_I learn how to whisper my name_

_without it sounding like a curse_

_I murmur spells to the parts of me_

_others have found too dangerous to love_

_Tell me again,_

_how healing is not a magical thing_

_Tell me again_

_how I am not made of sorcery._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you <3


End file.
